better off
by makapedia
Summary: If he lets her, Fakir knows she'll dither on it until this bus actually shows up - if it ever actually arrives. It's been twenty minutes of sitting in the rain under the tiny roof of this bus stop, shoulder to shoulder with Mytho's ex girlfriend, and he would give almost anything at this point to just go to bed.
1. deep blue, but you painted me golden

Fakir tries to mind his business. He really does.

There's nothing he likes less than getting caught up in other people's drama. If he had it his way, he'd never leave the house, writing all day and lamenting over Mytho and lost love and other disgusting things like that. It's therapeutic, he thinks, to mourn and process in his own time, and so all he really wants is for this late bus to hurry and show up already, so that he can put distance between the teary-eyed Ahiru and himself.

His jaw sets as he turns the page of his novel. He tries to focus on the words before him, or maybe even the sound of the rain hitting the pavement, but there's something so pitiful about the way she sniffles. What's even more pitiful is the way she's got her legs hugged up to her chest and curled herself into a ball, like a tiny, abandoned kitten in a cardboard box, and dammit, it's hard to pay attention to anything else _but _her.

He sighs. Shuts his book and then leans his head back. Fakir closes his eyes and asks, "What?"

She sniffles. He hears her shuffle, hears the old plastic of the seat creek beneath her. "W-what?"

"You've been crying for twenty minutes," Fakir says slowly. "And I've been trying to ignore it, but-"

"Oh! O-Oh, I thought- sorry, I was trying to be quiet-"

If whimpering is Ahiru trying to be quiet, Fakir doesn't want to know what an actual full-blown cry session sounds like. He sighs again and rubs a hand over his face, dragging it down over his eyes. "Okay."

"Sorry! Um, I just-"

She is the most long winded person he knows. If he lets her, Fakir knows she'll dither on it until this bus actually shows up - _if _it ever actually arrives. It's been twenty minutes of sitting in the rain under the tiny roof of this bus stop, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Mytho's ex girlfriend, and he would give almost anything, at this point, to just go to bed. Fakir doesn't do feelings. Not publically, anyway. And certainly not like this. Not with _her_.

But patience is a virtue. And though he's tired he's not cruel. There is some sympathy in him, believe it or not; he's not purposefully mean, just sort of short, sometimes, and he can't say he doesn't understand what she's going through. He'd been there once, left behind by prince charming, and even if Fakir had taken it just as hard (if not more, if he's being honest) he'd just done it in secret.

Alone. In the privacy of his own home. Where nobody could hear him cry.

So he gives her the time to collect her thoughts. It's not like he has anywhere to be anyway. Who knows when this bus will put them both out of their misery.

"... Sorry," she says finally, and he feels her knee press against his thigh, as she scoots back in the seat and sets her feet on the ground. "This is, um, this is kind of insensitive of me, right?"

He snorts and lets his head fall back and rest against the wall of the bus stop. No, this is just his own personal purgatory. This is what he gets for having feelings. Fakir should know better. "It's been years, Ahiru."

"But it still happened!"

Lots of things have happened in the past three years. He's graduated college. Mytho's found a new girlfriend. It wasn't like Fakir expected him to just say single forever; Mytho's magnetic, in a weird sort of way, and draws people to him with his kindness like moths to a flame. It would be wrong, Fakir thinks, to hold that attraction against anyone. Because he gets it, perhaps better than anyone else does, and more than anything else, he still wants Mytho to be happy. That'd always been the goal, after all. Mytho's happiness. Mytho's _wellness_.

Christ. Fakir lets his eyes open and watches the rain hit the street. "... It's been _years,_ Ahiru."

"I never meant to steal him from you, you know," she mewls, scrubbing at her eyes. Something in Fakir's stomach sinks. "That's never what I wanted! I just- I wanted him to smile, you know, and he was so nice to the baby birds in the park, a-and we'd just hang out together sometimes feeding them, and it wasn't anything weird or malicious, it just happened, and-"

"Ahiru." He digs his fingers into the fabric of his pants. "It's fine. You don't have to talk about that."

"But I should." She pivots on the bench, sliding, skirt shifting up her bare thighs, and Fakir closes his eyes again. He can't have this conversation with her, not while she's looking at him with those big blue eyes. "_We _should! We never did, and I never- I didn't want to hurt you, you know. I asked him not to."

"Ahiru."

"I know you loved him just as much as I do." He can feel her stare on him, hot like a laser, cutting clean through him. He swallows, and Ahiru keeps barrelling on, in that stubborn, frustrating way of hers. "And I never even apologized to you."

"You did. You wrote me a letter, if you don't recall-"

She leans forward and shakes his shoulder, and fuck it all, it's impossible to ignore her. Ahiru demands his attention in ways she never has before and tugs on his sweater insistently. "You deserved a face-to-face apology. I stole your boyfriend!"

This wasn't supposed to be about him. This was supposed to be about her and her broken heart, now that Mytho's found a new girlfriend _again_. Leave it to Ahiru to pour her energy into apologizing to him instead of nursing her own broken heart, even when he gives her the space to vent and talk about her feelings. Does she know she has a heart? Does she know she's allowed to acknowledge it?

She must. It's bigger than his. Bigger than anyone he's ever met. Perhaps even Mytho's.

"You did not steal my boyfriend," Fakir says slowly.

Her lower lip wobbles. She blinks back tears from her ocean eyes. "But!"

"Mytho broke up with _me_ and then asked _you_ out, if I'm not mistaken." And he's not, because he's run it through his brain a thousand times. It would hurt less, he thinks, if the relationship had fallen apart due to Ahiru's meddling - but to pin that on her would be unfair, considering Mytho hadn't loved him enough to resist the glow of this tiny pixie of a girl. "So quit the blubbering. I'm not upset with you."

She exhales. He tries not to notice, but it's admittedly hard. This _tiny pixie of a girl_ does sort of have a magnetic glow, now that he's seated so close to her, now that he can count the constellations of freckles stretching over her nose, along the pink of her cheeks.

Ahiru wipes wet bangs from her face. "I'm still sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I feel terrible about it."

"You should be feeling terrible for yourself." It's out before he can stop himself. "Stop thinking about me, idiot."

Her mouth opens and closes. It's hard to say what are tears and what are raindrops drenching her face. "... But he has Rue now," she says after a pause, and there's something like resolution in her stare, now. Like she's almost at peace with it for that brief moment in time - Mytho had left her for Rue.

"... Yes," Fakir says.

"Rue's like." Ahiru blinks and smears mascara on her cheeks. She's cute, even with raccoon eyes, and Fakir gets it, why Mytho would find himself attracted to her, even if she's sort of a mess and a clutz. "She's the best? And she's beautiful, and she's older, and taller, and she's got- she's got a _body,_ and-"

"And she's known him since we were kids."

Ahiru nods, still clutching his shoulder. "I never stood much of a chance anyway! I was living on borrowed time, s-so, um, being upset about it is hard. I would break up with me too!"

But she's still crying. He knows she's still crying. Ahiru's not slick, and she's still sniffling every few minutes, clearly attempting to keep her shit together without alerting him to her plight. It's as brave as it is stupid, for her to try and hide the fact that she's crying in front of him - he's already called her out on it once. Obviously he can still tell. He's perceptive, whether she likes it or not.

Fakir looks down the street. Still no sign of their bus. Right. Of course.

"Sorry," he says, because he doesn't know what else to say in this situation.

What else can he tell her? Is he supposed to sugarcoat it for her, to soften the blow? That would be doing her a disservice.

She lets out a long breath through her nose and crumbles back onto the bench, a pathetic pile of girl and far too much hair, tied up in a drenched braid, dripping onto her lap. He thinks perhaps her storm has passed and the clouds have begun to part; her breathing settles eventually, finally, and he watches Ahiru close her eyes, watches her features soften as she breathes in and out, slowly, slowly.

The streetlight flickers above them. He prays it won't go out. The buzzing overhead and the white noise of the rain are the only things keeping him sane.

"... He loved you, you know," she mutters, almost serenely. "He'd talk about you all the time. About the treehouse you built him when you were kids, because you knew he liked the birds and wanted a way to be closer to them."

The something that'd dropped into his gut burns hot. He wishes she'd stop. "Idiot."

"Sometimes I think his heart is just too big for his own good," she continues, and her eyes are open now, staring distantly across the street, at the emptiness of the night surrounding them. "There's too much space for everyone there. How is he ever supposed to settle, when there's always going to be somebody else he wants to protect?"

_Idiot._ She should stop talking. Putting those feelings and thoughts into words - that's dangerous.

"Rue's the one, though," she says pensively. The yellow light of the street lamp overhead casts shadows on her face, and her eyelashes flutter as she sucks in a deep breath. "I can tell, you know? When he looks at her, and she looks at him, and it's like… they love each other. They get each other."

He does know. He'd watched it happen when he was fourteen and they thirteen, watched the way Rue's whole world had lit up whenever Mytho would quietly ask her to explain something to him. He'd seen the way Mytho would gravitate towards her, the pretty brunette from down the street, and it would've been impossible to miss the way he'd hold her tiny wrists in his hands and graze his fingers over every bruise along her arms.

They didn't call him prince charming for nothing.

Fakir stops staring at her and instead looks to the night, too. He's sort of tired of knowing everything.

"So now what," he says, after a beat.

Ahiru sniffles and rubs her nose. "We get on this bus."

"I don't think this bus is ever coming."

She laughs, a sad, twinkling sort of noise, and Fakir doesn't have the capacity to address the way his chest lightens at the sound right now. "We walk home?"

"In the rain."

"... In the rain," she repeats mournfully.

There's no sign of it clearing up. And unless Ahiru's hiding an umbrella up that miniskirt of hers, neither of them have anything to protect themselves from the rain. Hell, Ahiru's not even wearing a jacket - she's shivering, still soaked to the bone from her sprint to the bus stop.

Guess they just have the same rotten luck. Fakir shakes his head and then puts his face in his hands, face down in his lap. The only thing separating the two of them is his discarded novel, and if that's the last hope they have to keep them out of the rain during the walk home, well, they're screwed. The only solution is to wait it out.

Fakir isn't convinced Ahiru will last the night. With the way she's yawning now, he's willing to bet money within the hour she'll be snoozing on his shoulder.

"Stupid bus," she mutters, squirming.

Indeed. He picks his book back up and cracks it open to the bookmarked page. If this is his life now, he's not going to just sit by idly and allow himself to overthink. Ahiru settles next to him, thigh pressed against his, and he doesn't need to look to know that she's blushing over the whole ordeal. As if they have a choice in the matter - it's either they sit close enough to touch or get drenched in the downpour around them. There's nothing to be embarrassed about because there's nothing _intimate _about it.

A lesser man might find it cute. Fakir doesn't think on it. He flips the page instead and continues reading his collection of poems.

"Hey," she mumbles, bumping her knee against his. "Would you read me something?"

"Are you that bored?"

"There's nothing else to do," she says, and he can hear the pout in her voice. Childish. "You seem like you're done talking to me now, so- so I don't know how else to pass the time. Read to me?"

Not even a please. Fakir raises a brow and turns to the page before. "No complaining if you don't like poetry."

"You're reading _poetry?_"

He's not sure he likes that tone she's taken. He hesitates. Finally, he settles with asking, "Why the suspicion?"

"You-" she pauses. "... That's. Flowery of you?"

"_Flowery._"

"Hopeless romantics read poetry."

That's a polite way of implying he's dry and uninteresting. Well, whatever. It's not like he's not used to the assumption. And it's not like he doesn't give her good reason to believe otherwise. "I had a boyfriend, you know. I can be romantic. We dated for two years."

"I know! But!" Fakir turns the page as she squirms next to him. Finally, she settles again, unwinding her damp hair from its long, tangled braid. "... I didn't think you'd read them for fun."

"So you don't want me to read to you then."

She sits up straight. "That's not what I said!"

A lesser man might find her cute. Fakir, again, doesn't allow himself to consider it. No matter how alike she is to Mytho in her core values, she's still so expressive, and loud about it, too - and it feels a little alien to him, the way she feels so openly. The way she throws her long, damp hair over her shoulder and accidentally whacks him in the face with it. The way she frets and gasps and apologizes and tries to take his face in her hands - it's alien. It's like she's an open book, and the bibliophile in him trembles at the urge to turn the page and see what comes next.

He shouldn't. He doesn't. Fakir slaps her hands away and tries not to think about the way the back of his neck feels hot. "I'm fine, but be _careful,_ would you?"

"Sorry! Sorry! I didn't mean to, I was just trying to get it out of the way so it'd dry-! Oh, it left a mark, oh _my god_, I'm so sorry-!"

"It's! _Fine!_ Stop _touching_ me, you weirdo-"

"_SORRY._"

.

The bus never comes.


	2. nothing but some heartburn, baby

After that, he sees her everywhere.

It's uncanny. Can't be a coincidence. For Ahiru to show up in the checkout line at the grocery store, and the dentist's office, _and _out while he's picking Uzura up from daycare — well, he begins to suspect foul play.

"Ahiru."

She cringes, then plasters on that toothy smile, laughing nervously. "Fakir! Hi!"

"You don't have a child."

Fumbling with her bag, she mutters, "Well, neither do you technically, but—"

"_Ahiru_."

It's almost funny how easy it is to startle her. But it's also not, and Fakir is reminded of both his reputation and his disposition, and his mood is soured further. Such is his life, he supposes. No matter what he wears or who he surrounds himself with - his tiny, adorable niece included - he will still be Fakir the terrifying, Fakir of the severe resting bitch face, Fakir the unapproachable. And once upon a time, that'd benefited him. That'd been the intention.

Now it's just what his face looks like. His reputation precedes him, even if he'd spent hours walking this girl home in the rain only three nights ago.

Said girl chews her lip and shifts her weight nervously. Hooks her bag over her shoulder and tries to offer him a placating smile, but her lipgloss is smudged, and Fakir can focus on nothing else but the glittery pink, smeared over her delicate cupid's bow.

"I work here now, okay?" she says finally. "I know it's not a glamorous job, and it's not cool to watch kids all day, b-but it's _important _work, okay, and it's hard work, and I don't want to hear it if all you're going to do is make fun of me."

Uzura toddles between them. She can't seem to decide whose leg she wants to cling to - her uncle's or her new caretaker's apparently.

"... I wouldn't make fun of you for your job," he says finally.

Ahiru sniffs and tugs her bag closer to her. "Not everyone can work big important jobs, okay."

"I'm a writer," says Fakir the freelancer, without a hint of pride. "Besides. I think this suits you."

She stares at him, clearly suspicious. "... I feel like there's an insult in there somewhere."

"Don't dig for it. There's not." It's a compliment, really. He can't imagine anything more difficult than raising children, than caretaking and being constantly emotionally available for tiny humans who don't yet have the capacity to communicate their feelings fully - hell, Fakir can handle his own feelings and that's about it, never mind a room full of 2-4 year olds.

It's clear Ahiru doesn't believe him though. She gives him a look and then kneels down to sit eye level with Uzura. "You don't let him bully you, okay? And if he gives you a hard time let me know and I'll give him a knuckle sandwich!"

"Fakir… is a bully?"

"Don't put words in her mouth. You'll get me in trouble."

"Bully!" Uzura chirps, far too gleefully.

Right. Maybe he was in a past life. Current Fakir doesn't need further slander of his name. He's working on it, okay.

For her part, Ahiru does smile apologetically. "I've been working here for a few weeks now and I haven't seen you come pick her up yet. Is she your sister?"

Sister. He could laugh. "Niece."

"Oh!" Ahiru stands and takes Uzura's outstretched hands in her own. "I guess that makes more sense. I wish I had nieces or nephews."

"Do you… have siblings?"

She shakes her head and shrugs. "No. Only child. I always wanted some, though, even if I always heard horror stories about little brothers and older sisters."

Uzura teeters where she stands, balancing on Ahiru's big feet. Fakir takes an instinctive step forward and braces the back of her head and his knees. She giggles and leans back, dangling from Ahiru's hands, head nestled safely between his kneecaps.

It's weird. Months ago, he would've never imagined himself in this situation, standing here casually with Mytho's girlfriend (_ex-girlfriend_, he reminds himself) as if this is a normal thing for him to do. As if Ahiru is the type of person to hang around with someone like him.

Which reminds him. "You're following me."

She looks up from Uzura and blinks, confused. "Huh?"

"I keep running into you everywhere. I half expected you to be in my shower this morning."

Ahiru's cheeks burn pink. "I am not!"

"Coincidences don't happen this often."

"Well maybe it's not a coincidence then!" She pouts at him and it is absolutely not adorable. Not even a little bit. "Maybe it's fate. Maybe we're supposed to be friends, Fakir. Friends run into each other sometimes and it's not a bad thing."

_Friends_. As if Ahiru is the type of person to hang around with someone like him. Mytho sure hadn't for very long.

"... And I would never just show up in your shower! I don't even know where you _live._" She huffs and Uzura bounces between their knees. "Don't be so paranoid."

He has to be paranoid. All possible outcomes have to be considered. It's just the way his brain works. Fakir wouldn't call it paranoia, per say— more like something along the lines of diligence, or of preparedness. Living carefree isn't in his mental dictionary. Not like her.

… Maybe that's not fair. He still remembers the way she sounds when she's trying not to cry. Carefree isn't the right word either.

Ugh. And he's a _writer. _

Fakir puts on his protective friend and says, "Can you imagine the two of us hanging out together?"

"We already have."

"That doesn't count. That was forced."

She looks to Uzura, confidence seemingly shot. Perhaps it was a bit needlessly cruel of him, but it's not like it isn't the truth; Fakir can't imagine Ahiru ever opening up to him, if the circumstances had been any different. And he's sure he never would've approached her on her own. Why would he, when the only thing they have in common is mutual love for Mytho, who dumped them both?

But then she looks back at him, and there's a sureness there, swimming in her ocean eyes. "You didn't have to stay. And neither did I!"

"It was raining."

"My life is a comedy of errors. I've endured worse."

Tenacious, stubborn Ahiru. Yes. That suits her a little more. Fakir raises a brow at her and allows Uzura to fling herself into his arms.

Ahiru is undeterred. Peculiarly rosy, but undeterred, and there's something comforting in that for him. "You stayed and talked to me. Most people would've just kept reading, but you talked to me. It was _nice. _You're nice, Fakir."

He's not. "I'm not."

She flicks him, even as he bounces Uzura on his hip. "Well, maybe you're not nice to _yourself, _but you're nice to me."

Fakir remembers glaring at her more times than he can count on both hands. What sort of warped perception of kindness does she have? One of them works with children and feeds birds in the park, and it's not him. Nice washes off him like water on a duck's back. He may not be needlessly cruel, but nice is a stretch, he thinks. Situationally, maybe. But Fakir wouldn't say he's kind, not truly, not in the way she is, not in the way Mytho is.

So he stares at her evenly. Doesn't change his expression as he says, "Okay."

"You are!" Ahiru insists, shuffling with her bag again. She hugs it closer to her. "It was really nice of you to talk to me when I was upset. A-And especially considering the reason, um, why I was crying, it was… nice of you. You're nicer than you think you are."

A broken heart is a broken heart. Fakir doesn't think that it was born out of kindness - he thinks part of himself had just wanted to close the book on that chapter of his life and start anew. And what better way than to lay this weird rivalry he'd had with Ahiru to rest?

"I'm still sorry, you know," she says then, watching him. She looks at him with such dedicated attention that it throws him off guard; she looks nowhere else but at him, and those blue eyes are deeper than he's probably ever given her credit. Christ. "I know he meant a lot to you. You two dated for years, right?"

"Ahiru." Not here, not now. Not with Uzura to care for and shuttle home.

"Sorry." Ahiru bites her lip. "I just- okay, yeah. No! Never mind! We'll talk about something else- like how we're friends now!"

"_Friends,_" Fakir says incredulously.

"Unless you don't want to be friends?"

It's almost sad how quickly she retreats. Ahiru leans back and quits digging through her bag, looking sheepishly at him with big, watery eyes. Oh, _god._ She's not going to cry, is she? What reason is there for her to cry? He's not even the least bit interesting or pleasant to be around.

Ahiru makes no sense. It's like he's kicked a puppy.

"I didn't say that," Fakir says quickly. "I just… thought it might be weird."

_Thought you wouldn't want to be around me._

She chews her lip. Produces a pen from her bag and and clicks the end of it nervously. "I don't know why it'd be weird. I mean! It's not like we have to hate each other, a-aand we didn't hate each other when we were each dating Mytho! I mean, I didn't hate you, and I still don't hate you, and I didn't hate you _then_, either, so-"

Ah, she's one of those. Babbles when she's feeling shy. Yes, he can see how Mytho might've found that endearing.

It's a little annoying. In a cute way. Fakir pulls his finger out of Uzura's mouth and sighs. "Take a breath, Ahiru."

"I want to be friends!" she blurts, then grabs the hand he'd just freed and shoves up his sleeve. "So! Um! If you want to be friends too-" Fakir can make out numbers, as she scribbles frantically onto the inside of his wrist, "then call me, okay! Or text me, if you get anxious about phone calls - I work mostly afternoons, but I'm free every other weekend and I like tea, if you want to get tea sometime and snacks."

Fakir blinks, dumbfounded. Stares at the inky numbers on his wrist as Uzura cheers, "Oh, cookies! Cookies!"

"Or text me when you're free and I can find a way to make it work. I'm flexible!" Her freckles are so bright in the sunlight. It's blinding. _She's _blinding, as she clicks her pen and then shoves it into her impossible knot of hair, sitting precariously atop her head. "Because I owe you anyway for that night. And hitting you in the face with my hair."

"... You don't owe me anything." It's all he can think to say. What's happening?

"I owe you at least tea. Or hot chocolate? Coffee?" Ahiru tilts her head and considers it for a moment. "Yeah. You look like a bougie coffee kind of guy."

There's probably an insult buried in there. Fakir blinks dumbly at her. "... Friends?" he repeats.

She nods, bun bobbing on her head. "If you want! Because I want!"

Friends with Mytho's ex-girlfriend. Are there rules for these kinds of things? Are they bound now, in some sort of camaraderie, because he'd listened to her cry once and understood? How much do they actually have in common, he wonders, besides their mutually thwarted attraction towards Mytho?

"I should go," she says then, and turns at once, waving absently, "I promised Pique and Lillie I'd get drinks with them tonight and I really don't want to go smelling like baby powder and drool, so- text me! Don't forget! Please!"

He stares after her for longer than he cares to admit. Far longer than necessary, Fakir watches her go with something akin to anxiety brewing within him, starting in his throat, before blooming up his neck, through his nose, along his cheeks—

"Fakir, blushing?"

He wrangles his feelings back into his throat and swallows them whole. "_Uncle_ Fakir," he reminds Uzura, swiftly switching which hip he has her balanced on. "And no. Not blushing."

"Lovey dovey?"

That boat's already sailed. And sank. Fakir doesn't do feelings — and certainly not crushes, not anymore. Even more than that, he doesn't do crushes on _girls. _At least… he's pretty sure he doesn't do crushes on girls. He's never before, anyway — but he's really never had _feelings _for anyone but Mytho - but the point's moot anyway, because feelings are a double-ended sword, and he's long retired from metaphorical knighthood.

He is just Fakir. Writer, brooder, uncle. With a girl's phone number written on his wrist, apparently.

"Not lovey dovey," Fakir says, just as seriously as before. "Come on. Your mother's probably wondering where we are."

"Mommy's lovey dovey?"

Disgustingly so. But it's fine. It works for her, and she'd earned it, her happily ever after, a healthy daughter and doting husband and white picket fence.

"With your father," Fakir says, turning to haul the three year old back to his car. "That's why they got married and had you."

"Had me?"

"Babies come from happily ever after."

"Oh." Uzura blinks at him, staring thoughtfully as he pulls the backseat door open and begins buckling her into the car seat. It's weird, how perceptive she is, despite being just three years old - sometimes, like now, when she's looking at him, Fakir feels like she can see right through him. Like she knows answers she shouldn't.

But then she giggles and slaps her hands down on her car seat's tray. Drums them and grins, shouting, "Lovey dovey, Zura! Lovey dovey!"

He doesn't know where she gets these things. Nonetheless, Fakir finds himself smiling ruefully and combing back her bangs in order to press a kiss atop her forehead. To be so young and bright eyed, to embrace everything so wholeheartedly - it's precious. Admirable. And certainly something to be protected, he thinks.

And he's okay with this life, with protecting this himself, even if she isn't his own daughter. Perhaps it's even safer that way, for there to be a degree of separation between him and this precious, tiny thing. The possessive claws of guardianship have less of a chance to find purchase in his heart.

Fakir boops her nose and then shuts the door. Tugs down his sleeve and tries not to think about the numbers inked onto his wrist. Tries harder, even, to pretend like he hasn't already memorized them.


	3. take me somewhere new

"Nonsense, Fakir. You don't have to do the dishes."

It's the least he can do. "You made dinner. Fair's fair," he says, already rolling up his sleeves. The faucet roars to life before Raetsel has the chance to further argue her point.

He can hear Uzura giggling in the living room, undoubtedly playing some game with her father or with Charon, and a sort of lull of comfort swells within him. For now, life is okay, and everything is as it should be - Raetsel frets over his duty and Uzura lives freely, and Fakir gets to fall into a role that's familiar and safe. For now, everything is okay, and life is as it should be, and it's only Raetsel's stubborn creeping behind him that has him on edge.

"I mean it," he says. "I can handle the dishes. At least let me do this much."

"You've got… something on your wrist, Fakir."

He can't tug his sleeve down fast enough. "I don't."

It's childish of him. He has nothing to hide, not really; it's not like he'd asked Ahiru to pen her phone number on his body like some sort of meaningful tattoo, and even if he had, it's not like there's anything suspicious about it. Though grumpy and sort of brooding, Fakir still is capable of friendship, he thinks. On anyone else, such a development wouldn't raise eyebrows.

Fakir scowls. But he isn't _anyone else,_ unfortunately, and such trivialities, like companionship, and a girl's bubbly handwriting shoddily sketched onto his skin, aren't meant for him.

"No, no," she says, in that soothing, deceptively devious voice of hers, "you _do._ Hold on."

"Raetsel. It's nothing."

Her smile carefully measured and completely embarrassing. "If it was nothing, you wouldn't be trying so hard to hide it from me."

Perhaps the proper response should've been to shove his hands under the faucet's spray and suds himself up with the dish soap. Alas. Fakir keeps his expression stony and allows his sister to roll up the sleeves of his simple button up, staring blankly at Ahiru's phone number as it's revealed to the world. It's stupid, all of this - how can someone's handwriting be cute. It doesn't even make sense. Who crosses their sevens anymore? Why'd she write an exclamation mark afterwards? Is she trying to get him in trouble or something?

Stupid. Fakir doesn't budge. "It's a friend's," he says, as if that is a proper explanation for something so out of character for him.

"What's his name?" Raetsel asks, brushing her thumb over the area code.

"I said it's a _friend._"

Her smile makes him want to scrub the ink off immediately. "I know," she says, far too serenely. "What's his name?"

"I'm not dating anybody."

"I didn't say anything about dating, Fakir. You did. Just now." She is infuriating and nosy and _god dammit, Ahiru._ "What's his name?"

Fakir scoffs, perhaps too gruffly, and shoves his hands into the soapy water. He wonders, not for the first time, why it's so difficult for her to mind her own business. He appreciates the concern, and even if it's embarrassing sometimes, he appreciates the nosiness, too, but sometimes - like right now - he wishes she'd keep out of it. He can't explain things he hasn't had the time to overthink yet. How can he explain this confusing _solidarity _he has with Ahiru if he doesn't understand it yet?

When he doesn't say anything more, Raetsel rolls up her own sleeves and slips into place beside him. Grabbing the second sponge, she murmurs, "It's been a long time since you've branched out. I was worried about you."

He knows. It's why he can't look her in the eye right now. Fakir focuses on scrubbing mashed potatoes off of Uzura's spoon. "I can handle myself."

"You've always been so independent." She switches on the water and begins rinsing dishes that he's already scrubbed clean. They make a sort of assembly line, Fakir handing her dishes, her rinsing, with Raetsel never once taking her eyes off of the phone number on his wrist for very long.

"I'm twenty five."

"And lonely."

Fakir scrubs a little harder. "Raetsel."

"I love that you spend so much time with my family." Her words are honeyed, sugared and all encompassing, and Fakir feels the back of his neck heat up, despite himself. "And I love how involved you are in Uzura's life. It makes me so happy that you want to spend time with her."

"Raetsel," he says again, scrubbing, scrubbing. He focuses on the task at hand, meticulously, stubbornly.

"I'm not saying you have to get married or have children, or that you have to follow in any of my footsteps," she starts, so very placatingly. "But what makes me even happier is seeing that you're meeting people. You can't live your whole life in your room, Fakir, even if you write beautiful words while you do it. There's so much more for you. I can feel it."

"It's a _phone number, _not a marriage proposal."

"What's his name? I'd like to knit him a sweater."

His blood sort of… simmers. It's all he can do to just keep washing the dishes and not flee the scene. "... Ahiru."

Raetsel raises a brow. "What an interesting name."

She's one of a kind, that's for sure. Fakir doesn't smile and works hard to give nothing away. There's not much to give away anyway - he doesn't even know how he feels about it yet, and anything Raetsel might latch onto could be untrue anyway, or a half-truth.

"Yes," he says simply. Because it is. And he wishes they could just leave it at that and be done with this.

"Is he nice?"

That simmering in his blood boils over, and Fakir mutters, "She's _something, _alright."

There's a pause then. For a long, pregnant moment, the only sound in the room is that of the faucet, whizzing to life, as Raetsel rinses the collection of forks they'd dirtied at dinner, and the giggles of her daughter, playing games with her father in the next room over.

Usually, Fakir finds comfort in silence. Usually, he takes great pleasure in the emptiness between conversation, lulls that allow him to process and piece things together. This, however, is almost unbearable. Raetsel says more with her silence than she ever could with her tender words. The simmering in his veins outright burns, now, and Fakir takes to scrubbing the ink off of his wrist instead of any dishes.

Raetsel places a gentle hand on his forearm. "Hey."

"It doesn't matter," he says, with gritted teeth. "She's _nice._ Nice girls don't like me very much."

"I didn't mean to… assume," Raetsel says, very carefully. Fakir hates it. He wishes she'd just say what she thinks - what he thinks, what anyone would think about the situation - but she doesn't. "I just thought, oh, that maybe you'd try meeting people again, and that would mean…"

Yes, they'd been over this bit before, only he'd been thirteen at the time and angry, and confused, and - _well_, sort of like this, now that he thinks about it. Only he'd been more aggressive as a teenager, struggling to come out to his big sister. It seems no matter how much time goes by, Fakir will always be an enigma.

"Do you like her?" Raetsel asks.

Ahiru is _nosy,_ and _pushy_, and _annoying,_ and has the prettiest blue eyes he's ever seen. Fakir shakes his sister's hand off and continues scrubbing resolutely. "It doesn't matter."

"It _does_."

He blinks rapidly and grunts, thinking of anything else but the way Raetsel's voice dips into the well of his heart and strokes something very tender and sensitive. It's invasive and he is very closed off, thank you very much, and not open for soul searching today, nope.

"I barely know her. I can't _like_ her." The ink's fading, but he can still make out that damned seven, and even in his haste, Fakir can't pretend that he hasn't already memorized her digits anyway. "Besides, she's… not my type."

"But she's nice," Raetsel supplies helpfully.

"_Exactly_."

"You're nice too." Raetsel switches off the faucet and dries her hands with the dish towel. "Mytho was also nice."

Everybody who says he's nice clearly doesn't know him very well at all. He is gruff, and unapproachable, and very blunt. Like the edge of a sword. His sister continues to see only the good of him, even if it's barely there, and Ahiru just has stars in her eyes and a heart too big for that damn tiny body of hers. It pisses him off. Everything pisses him off.

"I wasn't done washing my hands," he mumbles.

His sister takes his hand in hers and brushes her thumb along his wrist. His skin burns beneath her touch.

"You know you don't have to spend your whole life mourning Mytho," she says, as if it won't cut directly to his heart, as if it won't bleed him dry, right in front of her. "He was special, and he meant something to you-"

He wonders why everyone thinks it's okay to talk to him about Mytho. He wonders why everyone thinks he's an open book suddenly. Fakir slams that book shut and narrows his eyes at her, perhaps a fair bit unkindly, and says, "I'm not mourning anything. I'm not interested in dating. And I'm _not_ interested in Ahiru."

She exhales, but doesn't move her hands. Doesn't release him from her gentle grasp.

The back of his neck still feels hot. It's like he's on fire, and in the worst way - Fakir feels like he's been paraded around the town like a show pony, and to have so much attention directed his way so constantly is mortifying. For god's sake. He's a grown man now, not an angry, confused teenager crushing on his best friend. Being so worked up over something as miniscule as a girl's phone number is so unlike him.

"... But if you were," Raetsel says, with the hands of a mother and the eyes of a sister, "that would be okay, too. And I'd be happy to listen, if you needed someone to talk to about it."

Fakir and talking about his feelings don't belong together in the same sentence. She should know better. He will die emotionally constipated and it will be for the best; it's better, he thinks, to have kept himself safe behind these walls, as opposed to baring it all to the world. To live life so fearlessly, without a shield - well, it's how Ahiru had ended up crying at a bus stop alone with him.

He has to stop thinking about her. It's not good for him.

"She's not my type."

"You don't know that."

"She's a _girl,_" he says finally. He's sick of dancing around it. Sick of Raetsel tiptoeing around it. "I've _never _liked a girl before."

Her brows furrow. "I suppose… you've never really liked anyone but Mytho before."

_Yes._ He's perfectly aware of that, too. That's sort of why he's in this predicament to begin with. If there was anyone else for him maybe this whole thing wouldn't of been so damn depressing and tragic.

Besides. "She's Mytho's ex."

Try as she might, but Fakir can still make out the surprise in her expression, the subtle way her lips press together. It really is the stick that breaks his back, the real cherry on top of this sundae of complication.

"We have so much in common, don't we," he laughs, far too humorlessly. "We both got our heart broken by the same guy. What a great thing to base a relationship off of. Rebounding with each other."

"_Hey._"

"What can I do for her that he couldn't?"

Because there's nobody who knows better how Mytho could've made her feel than him. What a harrowing shadow for the both of them to live in. Fakir could never be Mytho, could never be prince charming - and Ahiru, though enthusiastic and adorable and infuriating, deserves better than playing the role of someone else.

Besides. If she likes guys like Mytho, she'd never go for someone as jaded and rough as him. And he doesn't even know if he would have the capacity to like her like that anyway. It's a recipe for disaster.

"That's not fair," Raetsel says, and then she's pulling him in for a hug. "Relationships aren't about what you can and can't do for someone. And you shouldn't be comparing yourself to her ex. It's not _healthy_."

It's reality. He's not handsome. He's not gentle. And he's certainly not _nice. _What is there to like?

Fakir pushes away from her hug. "My hands are still wet."

"I've had Uzura's boogers rubbed on me. That doesn't bother me, dear."

"I don't-" A loss of words. Unusual. He feels so out of sorts, so out of his element. "... It doesn't matter."

"You keep saying that." Her hands are on his shoulders, and she stares at him, so intently that he feels thirteen all over again. "But it does matter. It matters a lot to you. I can tell. You wouldn't get so worked up over something that doesn't matter. _That's _unlike you."

Perhaps he's just too much of a control freak. Feelings are frustrating. He can't control them, can't sort them as easily into neat boxes in his brain as he can with everything else. Feelings can't be compartmentalized in the same way; feelings for Mytho and feelings for anyone else, sure, he could at least separate, because after a while that'd become so obvious it'd been impossible for him to ignore, but this- this is out of left field. A girl's never gotten under his skin like this before. And with so little to work with, too.

"... I'm not ready to date again anyway," Fakir says, staring at his feet.

"That's okay," says Raetsel, ever gently, ever pointedly. She guides him with sure hands and determined eyes. "You said this wasn't a date thing anyway and I ignored you. Friends. Right?"

_Friends._ Whatever that means.

"I don't know if it's a good idea. She's not…"

Raetsel bops him on the head. "If you say she's not your type one more time I'm going to sick Uzura on you, and by the end of it you'll want to pull your hair out and call that girl back just to have an excuse to get away."

Harsh. He probably deserves it. Fakir looks her in the eye and nods wordlessly.

She smiles, then, and cups his cheek, and the back of his neck burns, burns. "It breaks my heart to see my little brother so lonely. Especially when I know what a catch he is."

He could die. "Raetsel…"

"You don't have to call her back, but I don't think it would hurt to try. What's the worst that happens, it doesn't work out? Then you're just back to being here and confused. But you'll never know if you never take the chance," she says, smiling, tugging him in to stand on her toes and kiss his forehead, very maternally. "And I hate to watch you miss out on life just because one relationship didn't work out and now you're too afraid to try again."

One relationship. As if it hadn't been _the_ relationship for him, the big one, the one that'd turned his life upside down and shown him what it was like to want. And to be wanted.

_One relationship. _He scoffs. "Thanks."

"You deserve to have friends." She ruffles his hair affectionately. "_Nice_ friends. Friends who aren't a three year old girl with a snare drum."

"I have other friends," Fakir says defensively.

His sister puts a hand on her hip and raises her brow.

"... I sit in silence in the library sometimes with Autor."

"_Please_ call that girl."

Ahiru. Her name is _Ahiru. _She has long hair and freckles and big doe eyes and cries like a kicked puppy when he doesn't immediately react to her friendship offerings. And she's Mytho's ex girlfriend.

Fakir is in so over his head. He waits until Raetsel has left to collect her daughter for bathtime to turn and gently bang his head against the refrigerator door. Maybe if he kills enough brain cells this whole thing will be easier for him, and he won't have to constantly worry if maybe they're overstepping boundaries or something by being friends with each other.

He hopes to god she doesn't try to talk about him. If Ahiru tries to discuss what kissing Mytho - or _worse_ \- had been like with him, Fakir might actually just die.


	4. i get caught up just for a minute

It's only as he's opening the door to the daycare does Fakir realize he's walking right into a nest of hornets.

It's so routine for him to just pick Uzura up on Thursdays. It has been for nearly a year now, and so he _doesn't_ think about it, taking great pleasure in just mindlessly going about his day and not overthinking things for once. It's only as he opens the door that he realizes the object of his anxiety works here, right, and that's how he'd run into her the last time.

Shit.

It's too late to back out now. He can't just ditch and leave Uzura in daycare until her mother gets out of work - she works late on Thursdays, and would certainly have her idiot brother's head if he went back on his promise and neglected his niece. At this point, he has no choice but to swallow that anxiety bubbling in his throat and face the music. Or… face the friend he's been ghosting.

The door jingles as he pulls it open. Fakir schools his expression into something neutral.

"Hi! Be right with- _ack!_"

He doesn't need to look to know it's her voice. It's not because he's thought about it a lot or anything, just that she has a very distinct way of talking, a particular timbre to her voice, and Fakir stops thinking about it immediately.

Besides. There are more dire things to obsess over. Like the fact that she'd taken one look at him, realized who he was, and ducked to hide behind the desk.

Right. So this is how it's going to be. Fakir shuts the door behind him and welcomes himself into the daycare. It would be worse, he thinks, to make this more awkward for the both of them and demand she be the one to fish Uzura out of the ocean of toddlers in the next room over. It would also be absolutely worse if he approached her at all, period, after very pointedly not texting her back for a week, after she'd made such a big deal of _writing her number on him_.

He doesn't go out of his way to be cruel. Sometimes he just sort of… stumbles over social situations. Misjudges things. Or - in reality - he's just a coward and doesn't go about making the next move. And sometimes that inability to act reads as disinterest.

"... May I," he asks, finally, as Ahiru peeks from around the desk at him guiltily.

She blinks. "... That's an employees only zone. Um! Sorry! I'll, um, I'll get her, hold on-!"

Ahiru slams her head on the desk as she tries to stand up. With the grace of a bull in a china shop, she gasps, jumps back, hits her head against the wall behind her and then drops to the floor. All in the matter of thirty seconds.

He's crossing the room in quick strides before he can think twice. It doesn't matter that he's been avoiding her for a week, or that she's Mytho's ex girlfriend, or that he has complicated, irritating feelings revolving around her. His protective instincts kick into overdrive, and really, he doesn't want to see this idiotic girl get hurt, even if she makes him feel all twisted up inside. He's not _cruel_. Nor does Fakir want to see anyone get hurt. _Especially_ in easy view of small children.

"Noooo," Ahiru whines, even as he drops to his knees beside her. "Nooo, isss fine-"

Her wrist is tiny in his hand and Fakir does not think on it. "Stop," he says, and also does not think about how obediently she obeys his instinctual command. She pouts but relents, allowing him to pull her hand away from her surely aching head. "Don't squirm."

A huff, and then, "you're not my dad."

He sure hopes not. Fakir would flick her for being a brat but doesn't, because she's hurt, and he's still kind of feeling guilty for ghosting her. "I'm trying to see if you're okay, moron."

"Moron!" she gasps, sitting up quickly. There goes obedience.

"Don't. Squirm."

"I'm not a-! _You're_ the one who-!"

Yes, yes, it's his fault, he knows. No need to rub it in. Fakir presses his hand over her face and eases her back. "Easy. You could have a concussion."

Her face flares up pink. He might think it cute, if he wasn't so preoccupied with playing babysitter to the babysitter. Christ. The last thing this doofus needs is a _head injury_.

Ahiru manages to slap his hand away even as he has her eyes covered, so her coordination can't be that off. "I'm _fine,_" she insists, scooting back to more gently press the back of her head against the wall instead.

She's _fine,_ but her lip wobbles as she attempts to stare him down, and there are noticeable tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. Ahiru can't even convincingly look him in the eye without breaking down into tears, and _that_ sure leaves a sour taste in his mouth. It's too easy to transpose and to connect the dots, and if there's one thing Fakir is truly terrible at, it's handling crying girls.

And considering it's probably him she's crying about, well. He covers her eyes again before she has the chance to sniffle. "You are not fine."

"It doesn't hurt that badly." _Sniffle._ There it is. "I just bumped my head…"

"Three times."

"Only twice!" She grapples with him again, this time wrapping _her_ fingers around _his _wrist, and Fakir finds himself staring at the rogue freckles there, speckled so delicately on the thin skin between knuckles. Ahiru sniffles again and says, very unconvincingly, "Don't worry about it."

If only he could. "I'll help you up."

Her grip on him tightens, and it's been so long, Fakir thinks, since somebody has touched him, dammit. Touch starved doesn't even begin to cover it. Such a ferocious kitten grip shouldn't be so comforting, and she's not even being ginger or loving about it; Ahiru's lip trembles and she tugs against his hand, attempting to free her damp eyes from his makeshift shield. Can't she see he's trying to help her? Can't she see he's trying to protect himself?

Well. Currently she can't see much of anything, but that's sort of the point. He doesn't know what else to do, now that he's here kneeling beside her, touching her. Idiot.

"I can do it myself," Ahiru says, but her voice cracks, and his palm's starting to feel wet. "Don't… you don't have to…"

Fakir closes his own eyes and takes in a deep, cleansing breath. "You could be concussed."

"That's not…"

Yeah, he knows it's not what she's really crying about. But Fakir is a coward, and feelings - especially _these_ feelings - are complicated and terrifying, and it's easier for him to fall into this role, the big protector, than to face them head on. It's what he'd done with Mytho for years, when he'd been an angsty teenager, and it seems nothing has changed. It seems no matter how much time passes, Fakir will always have this failsafe to fall back on. This role he can so mindlessly slip into.

"Easy, idiot," he says, beginning to pull himself to his feet. The hand over her eyes slips to cup the back of her head instead, and her lashes are inky and damp as she blinks, mascara smudging along her cheeks. "Slowly."

Her hand braces itself on his forearm instead. Her fingers catch the fabric of his jacket as she wobbles to her feet. Even when she's standing at her full height, Fakir's still more than a head taller than her, and it's a little funny, looking down at her, with the back of her head cupped in his hand. It almost feels like when he's bandaging Uzura's scraped knees, or when he'd rocked her to sleep when her mother and father had gone out on a date night. Familiar. Comfortable. It's certainly a roll he knows how to play.

And for a moment, Fakir thinks it'll be okay. He can be her friend, and this is safe, and normal, and even if _they're _abnormal and don't have a lot in common, they can find a middle ground somewhere. Ahiru can bump into things and cry easily and he'll play this role he's so good at, the knight in shining armor, even if he's kind of got an attitude problem sometimes, and everything will be fine.

But then Ahiru sniffles and rubs her eyes, turning to look at him through her damp lashes, and something rushes through his chest, warm and unbidden.

He swallows thickly. Everything will be _fine_.

"Better?"

His own voice sounds alien. It's like the words aren't coming out of his mouth, and not by any fault of his own; there's something about her and the way she looks at him, so completely, without pretense, and it's like she's pulling the words out of him with her own hands. He has half a mind to rub his chest, just to remind himself that it's his heart beating there, keeping him alive, and that she hasn't burrowed her way into his ribcage with her stupid, clumsy, freckled hands and found a home for herself without his permission.

It makes no sense. He barely knows her. She's _Mytho's ex._

Ahiru sniffles and rubs at her running nose now with the sleeve of her sweater. "Sorry…"

It's stupid. She's stupid. Fakir feels like he should be the one apologizing. "Don't."

"Sorry." She winces. "I mean, um. Thank you. Sorry. Oh! _Sorry, _I can't stop- shoot-"

"You have nothing to apologize for," Fakir says evenly, even as he shoves his hands into his pockets and struggles to quell his nerves. He has nothing to be nervous about either, except for the fact that he hasn't had a proper friend in god knows how long, and _this one_ manages to make him more nervous than Mytho or Rue ever had. "I'm the one who owes you an apology."

"No!"

"... No?"

"No," she says again, and then she's biting her lip. "No, you don't, I mean- I was the one who forced my number on you, right? And just because I gave it to you doesn't mean you have any obligation to text me back or try to contact me, a-and, um, I don't get to sit and pout about it if you don't want to be my friend, right? Because you get to be your own person too, no matter what I feel, and-!"

There she goes again, babbling. Being in her brain must be exhausting. He can't imagine what it's like to not have a filter to run everything through - it's like every thought just funnels its way immediately out of her mouth, and then Ahiru's left talking a mile a minute, struggling to rangle her thoughts into any sort of coherent sentence. Perceptive as he is, even Fakir has a hard time keeping up with her, and that's saying something. He considers himself a wordsmith of sorts.

But it's rude to cut her off, even if it would be a mercy kill, so he stands and lets her finish. Fakir watches her with calm, calculating eyes, as Ahiru squirms very adorably beneath the weight of his stare.

Very… nervously. Shyly? Hm.

"... You… don't have to do anything," Ahiru settles with, finally, still squirming. She tugs at the ends of her sleeves, fidgeting. "I should've… asked? Or something? Before forcing that on you, I'm sorry-"

"No," he cuts her off. "I'm sorry. I should've at least gotten back to you and given you some sort of answer, even if it was a no."

Her face heats up. Her freckles glow pink. "No! You're not obligated to do anything, especially not if you're busy or just don't, um, don't want… to be my friend. I know I'm kind of weird and pushy sometimes and I'm trying to work on that. And I whipped you with my hair!"

That braid slap is literally the furthest thing from his mind. "Ahiru."

"I shouldn't project onto you!"

"You're not. Ahiru," he starts, summoning the courage of the knightly figure he most certainly is _not_. "I'm sorry for ghosting you."

He expects it to quell that anxious energy that's so apparent in her. Instead, her eyes well up with tears again, and then she's waving her hands in front of her face and cowering back, whimpering.

She's impossible. He doesn't understand her. Isn't that what she would've wanted? An apology, for mistreating her, and for neglecting her feelings while he was off brooding and overthinking his own? Of all things, Fakir hadn't expected an apology to be the thing that set her off and brought upon the waterworks again.

Maybe she just cries easily. It's the fourth time he's seen her tears this month, and he's really only seen her in passing, sans that night by the bus stop that started this whole thing between them.

Still. His heart drops into his gut. It's not like he _enjoys _making people cry. "_Ahiru_."

"No!" she blubbers, and then she's scrubbing at her eyes again with the hem of her sleeves. God, it feels like she'd just stopped crying, too. "Nooo, no, don't apologize! I'm the one who- you don't need to- if you don't want me that's fine, I get that, but don't feel like you have to explain yourself to me-"

Christ. His heart drowns in his gut, kicking and screaming. Is that what this is about? Is that what she thinks?

"That's not what this is," Fakir says, jaw clenched.

The look she gives him is positively miserable. "Isn't it?"

And to think, he'd been dreading entering through that front door only minutes ago, afraid she'd be angry with him for blowing her off. Of all things to latch on to, of all things for her to get worked up over - she's managed to twist it so thoroughly in her head that Fakir can't even trace it back to the source anymore. As if someone like Ahiru was really that hard pressed for companionship; she's the sort of person that people gravitate to, irritatingly so, and with a heart as aggravatingly self-mutilating as hers is, Fakir can't imagine she has much trouble getting people to spend time with her.

Hell, with eyes like her, he doubts she has any trouble at all. They're bluer than anything he's ever seen. It makes him want to scrub his face clean off and lock himself in his apartment for the rest of time.

But somehow, for reasons beyond his comprehension, she's taken his cowardice as a lack of interest. Or a deliberate disinterest, judging by how absolutely crestfallen she looks, still sniffling, looking to her feet.

He is the worst. This is what he'd meant when he said she wasn't his type. She's too easy to bulldoze through emotionally. One careless action, a moment of oversight, and Ahiru's left brokenhearted and thinking that he doesn't _want_ her or… something.

Fakir rubs his face. "No… no, it's not."

"But-"

"_But,_" he interrupts, before she has the chance to talk herself further into a tizzy. "I needed time to think about it. You have no reason to apologize."

She blinks at him, and god, those eyes really are something special. Bluer than blue. Larger than life. It really sort of pisses him off, in a way that doesn't even make sense, and Fakir swallows back the urge to dither on it for another week.

"And I've thought about it."

"... A-And?"

He cannot look her in the eye. Fakir looks over her shoulder and stares at the brick wall behind her. "I would… like to get coffee with you sometime. If that's alright with you."

It doesn't matter that he's not looking at her. Ahiru blossoms like a spring flower and her delight is practically palpable. It's like she's single handedly giving him a cavity with her sweetness, and Fakir's jaw almost aches from the way he's clenching it, so tightly that part of him really _is_ afraid that his teeth will break.

Stupid. This is stupid. Emotional vulnerability is stupid. Who does he think he is? Fakir doesn't do this anymore. Not after where it'd landed him last time.

But then Ahiru practically bawls and lunges forward to throw her arms around him. It's so sudden that Fakir can't dodge her hug in time, and instead he panics, struggling to grab her shoulders and sturdy her while she cries inexplicably into the cotton of his gray sweater. If he didn't know any better, he'd think he'd just gotten on one knee and proposed to her or something, judging by the way she's reacting to an offering of friendship.

Friendship, he reminds himself. _Friendship._ He is going to be her _friend. _The buzzing in his blood is purely platonic. Ahiru is not his type, and he's- _well._ If Mytho's her type, then Fakir's the farthest thing from it.

"Sorry!" she gasps, blubbering, jumping back nearly as quickly as she'd dived into him originally. "I just-"

The bell of the entry door jingles. They both look over their shoulders and there stands Mytho, looking pale in the afternoon light, a package held to his chest.

That buzzing in Fakir's blood goes stagnant.


	5. build a heart made of armor

"Oh," Mytho says, dragging his feet across the welcome mat of the daycare. "Hello, Fakir. I didn't expect to see you here too."

It's so damn casual of him. He handles these situations with such flawless grace that it almost makes him mad for moment - here Fakir is, feeling thunderstruck and perhaps even guilty, and it's as though this situation doesn't even phase Mytho. How normal can it be for him to walk in on his two exes hugging in broad daylight?

His grip on Ahiru goes slack. She teeters back, as if she's still gathering her land legs, but Fakir doesn't have the tenacity right now to comfort her. It would only be more incriminating, he thinks, if he were to touch her more freely, especially considering their new audience.

It's ridiculous. He'd just told himself they were friends. They're bound to no code, now that neither of them are dating Mytho. Fakir is allowed to have friends, he thinks defensively, even if his one friend is so far out of his league that it's almost laughable. Even if his newly minted friend is debatably concussed and also _still _teary eyed.

Dammit, Ahiru.

"Uzura," Fakir says.

Mytho nods and smiles slightly. "Oh. Yes. That makes sense. Small world."

He takes several steps closer to them. It's slight, but Fakir doesn't miss the way Ahiru tenses next to him, the way her skinny shoulders bunch up. He can't protect her from this, and he shouldn't want to, either - they're both in the same boat here, feeling cornered and caught off guard by the same man that broke their hearts - but it doesn't stop him from clenching his fist anyway. The more Mytho approaches, the stiffer that crook in her neck seems to get, and Ahiru looks so keyed up that Fakir thinks it must hurt.

But she never actually cracks. Ahiru blinks and smudges her mascara over her cheeks but keeps it together somehow, miraculously, and he might even be proud of her if the situation was different.

It's not. He has no reason to be proud of her. By all means, she should be out of tears by now anyway. Ahiru had cried herself stupid at that bus stop. By now, she must be dry. Has to be.

Mytho's smile is as disarming as it is saddening. That clenched fist of his tightens as he turns to face Ahiru instead, as he stops in front of her and not Fakir, and this means nothing, he tells himself - and if it means anything at all, it is latent jealousy born from leftover feelings for his _(their) _ex.

Then Mytho holds the package out to her. "This is yours."

"Oh," Ahiru says, blinking still, but the smudging has stopped. "Oh! I'm sorry, I thought I changed the shipping address-"

"The post office is silly about stuff like that." Mytho nods, then pats her head. "I'm sorry about bothering you while you're at work, but I realized I don't know where you've moved to, and I remember you mentioned something about applying for this job, so…"

She hugs the package just as tightly to her chest as she holds her shoulders. Like a violin string that's been tuned just a notch too intently. "I'm sorry."

"No need for apologizes," Mytho says kindly.

This must just be a _thing_ with her. Apologies come as easy as breathing, and that's a thought that hangs heavy in his gut, sinking, sinking. He wonders how long this girl has been shouldering more blame than she ought to.

But it slides off of her like water off a duck's back. Ahiru smiles - or tries to, he supposes, but the corners of her lips tremble, just noticeable - and shrugs, a little guilty, a lot sad. She watches Mytho with the same wonder he'd seen in her eyes all those months ago, the first time he'd seen them out together properly, after Fakir's own breakup. There's a light, a glitter in her eye that's as unmistakable as it is damning.

The heaviness in his gut churns. His nails are bitten blunt, but they still dig into the skin on his palm deep enough to ache.

"Sorry," Ahiru says anyway. She bites her lip. "I. Um."

Right. Fakir clears his throat. "Is there anything else you'd like to say?"

She jolts beside him. There must be an accompanying dirty look thrown his way, but Fakir doesn't bother gazing her way to see; he's preoccupied too, in this awkward emotional threeway they've found themselves in, and even if Ahiru still has it in her to look at her ex-boyfriend with sad, lovelorn eyes, it's been too long now, for Fakir to bank on thwarted happily ever after.

He has walls, dammit. And he has these walls for a reason. Even if the foundation has begun to crack lately, and even if the light's begun to peek through through those decrepit bricks, he can still find comfort here, in his old ways.

"Oh, I just wanted to deliver her mail," Mytho says, ever pleasant, ever clueless. "I didn't open it but I thought it was probably still important enough if she was having it delivered-"

How knightly. Is it hot in here? "And you've done that."

Ahiru elbows him. She is tiny but bony, and her elbow jabs his gut like a needle. He cannot help but jolt, just a little, and Mytho smiles at the display - and that sets off the burning in Fakir's blood like nothing else.

"I didn't realize you two were so close," he says, looking between them.

"We're _not_."

That one doesn't earn him a needle-elbow-strike. It earns him absolutely nothing, and he might worry about that a bit more, if he wasn't so preoccupied staring Mytho down. His (_and her_) ex smiles unwaveringly, and of course he's used to Fakir's sharp edges by now. Of course he's undeterred.

"I'm glad," he says, clueless as ever, rose-colored as always. "It makes me feel better, knowing you two have each other"

And that's their prince charming alright. Never once has Mytho ever had a filter. He just says what he thinks, constantly, without the foresight to consider how it might go over, and though it's funny sometimes, in times like this, it's catalytic.

It makes _him_ feel better. What is he supposed to say to that?

"Um," stutters Ahiru, finally collecting her bearings. "Thank you for delivering this for me. It's very sweet of you."

"Of course. Are you still coming over next week for game night?"

Kill Bill sirens go off in the back of Fakir's head. He's still trying to process that bomb when he feels Ahiru nod next to him. "Yep!"

"I'll see you then." Mytho nods back at her, still smiling dazzlingly. "And you too, Fakir? You're always invited if you want to come. I think Rue would be happy to have you."

Ahiru elbows him again before he has the chance to bark out a laugh at that - and there's nothing funny about it. "Goodbye! Thank you!" she says, far too cheerily, for someone who's been apparently hanging out with her ex for _semi-regular game nights_ and ignoring all sense of boundaries. She waves, far too intently, and when he looks to his side and watches her jaw tense as she throws her arm about, his blood _boils_.

The door jingles shut. Fakir turns on _her_ before he has a chance to think about it. "_Game night?!_"

Her lips press together. She looks up at him, and not for the first time, Fakir realizes the towering advantage he has over her. Ahiru is so tiny, both in frame and in stature, but she gathers her grit and looks up at him stubbornly, misty eyes and all.

"Yes," she says, voice textured. "Game night. We've always had game night."

Maybe, but they'd also been romantically inclined at one point, and even the thought of subjecting himself to that twists him up inside. No wonder she'd been crying at that bus stop like a kicked puppy; Ahiru doesn't know how to do boundaries. Ahiru doesn't know how to protect her own heart.

Idiot. It's not his business.

Except it is now, because they're friends - or something like it, what the hell - and Mytho thinks they're close. And some stupid part of Fakir's own heart wants Mytho to feel better.

He's screwed. They're both so screwed. Maybe Fakir doesn't know how to boundaries either. Christ.

Fakir lets out a long breath and rubs his face, taking a step back. Perhaps the best approach isn't to loom threateningly over the girl who looks about three seconds away from crying. That won't do his reputation any favors.

"Game night, Ahiru."

"I _like _Rue," she says, so stubbornly.

"So does _Mytho._ That's why he's sleeping with her."

He pulls his hands away just in time to watch her eyes properly water. Okay. So that was a bit harsh. Still. Somebody has to give her a wake up call, right? If her other friends are letting her drag her broken heart around like a veil behind her then they're not very good friends at all - there is respecting Ahiru's decisions and then there is standing by and watching her prolong the inevitable.

"... You don't know that," Ahiru says then, tiny and cowering back, just a bit. "He- it's not always about that."

It's not. But she'd have to be blind to not see the way Rue looks at their prince. Ex prince. Fuck. This whole situation is so twisted, and Fakir feels fifteen again, clueless and angry, and who that anger is directed for is unclear. He scrubs his face again and takes a cleansing breath.

Ahiru hugs her package to her chest. "... It's not always about that," she says again.

"... That was harsh," he admits. Gotta pick his battles. "Sorry."

"I still like him. And it's not always about that," Ahiru admits, closing in on herself, hugging that cardboard box closer, closer. "Even if I'm not… even if I can't be who makes him happy, y-you know, I still want to be in his life. I think it's better to still be his friend, even if I can't be his… you know. I love him more than I just _love _him."

"You'll never get over him if you don't let yourself have space, you know," he says finally, after a beat of silence.

She relents, nodding quietly. Ahiru doesn't say anything after that for a long while, chewing on the thought. When she does finally collect her feelings, her eyes are damp and her smile's tight - but she still says nothing at all and just smiles at him, sad and honest, and he is not a knight, not anymore, and he cannot protect her from this, but dammit all.

Friends. This is why he doesn't do friends anymore. Not with nice girls. Not with teary-eyed pretty girls who wear their hearts on their sleeves.

"I'll get Uzura," Ahiru says, as if finally remembering their setting. He's sure forgotten, that's for sure, between the drama of her nearly knocking herself out on the desk and Mytho's sudden guest appearance. "Wait here, okay?"

"Ahiru," he tries.

"It'll only be a second," she says, bumping his shoulder as she scurries into the back. She has her hair done up in twin buns today, bobbing about on either side of her head, and the left hangs looser and lower than the right. The perfectionist in him itches to fix her and even her out, but he doesn't act on such an impulse. It's not his place.

Instead, he watches her go for about three seconds before his voice betrays him. " Wait."

She jumps. Stops. Looks over her shoulder, lips trembling, still attempting to uphold that flimsy smile of hers.

"... Are you busy tonight?"

_We're not close _he's said, only minutes ago. They're not close, but Ahiru shakes her head at him and watches him thoughtfully, and maybe they could be, he thinks, if it makes Ahiru happy. Something ought to. The strong protect the sweet.

… Not that he's strong. God. Fakir feels like a tool, standing there, scrubbing the back of his neck anxiously. This isn't him. And if it is, then he's the one who's terrible with boundaries and protecting his heart - because it's not good for him, the way she makes him feel when she smiles, a single tear disappearing between the seam of her lips. Who the hell is he? What is he getting himself into?

"... I like cider?"

Right. And he likes red wine. Fakir tries very hard not to fidget out of his skin and die on the spot. "I'll pick you up?"

"You have a car?"

"I'm here to pick Uzura up."

They're both terrible at this. Fakir wants to claw his face off. Wants to rip his heart out of his chest and stomp it into the dirt, impossibly frustrated with the way it thumps in his chest when she giggles and says, "Oh! Right!"

He's here to pick Uzura up. His niece. This is Ahiru's place of work and he's asking her out for drinks. Who the everloving hell is he? Fakir doesn't have a heart anymore, and he doesn't have feelings, and he doesn't do close companionship, not when it always hurts in the end - but leaving her to sit and mope by herself tonight seems too cruel, and who else, he thinks, will understand his three feelings but Ahiru, who has gone through it too?

A friendship based on mutual heartbreak. How pathetic.


	6. and you could do better

"I thought you said you _liked_ cider."

"I do." But the face she's making tells a different story; Ahiru winces as she downs another swig of her drink and then places it back on the table before her.

It's certainly not the face of pleasure. Fakir raises a brow but doesn't nag further, instead taking the break in conversation as a chance to sip at his own drink. It's cheap wine but it's wine, and at this point in his day, he's really just looking for something to take the edge off.

Ahiru presses her lips together determinedly. "It's just like. The least terrible of the cheap alcohols?"

"You don't have to drink."

"It's a social thing!" she insists, scooting her chair closer. "Besides, it's better than beer-"

"That's a very low bar to clear."

Ahiru downs the rest of her drink and then slams it down. She gives a good shudder, shuts her eyes and then exhales, as if the task had been physically daunting.

She's ridiculous. And stubborn. And so out of place in this bar; it's a little funny, he thinks, looking at Ahiru, cute and freckled, framed in cheap lighting and surrounded dart boards and pool tables. Ahiru, in an oversized sweater with the sleeves rolled up to her skinny wrists, impossibly long hair tied back in a messy braid, breathing the same air as the drunk couple trying to swallow each other's faces only a table away.

Maybe this had been a bad idea. Fakir scratches the side of his face and looks away.

"You can order something nicer, you know," he says. "I'm paying, so-"

"You are _not!_"

"I _am _if it means you stop making that face every time you try to take a sip."

Ahiru pinks and leans back in her seat. Shifts, and tucks her legs beneath her, knobby knees incandescently white as they poke through the holes of her jeans. "I don't-" she fidgets, tugging at her knitted sleeves. "I don't make a face."

She literally throws a whole fit. Like her body is rejecting it or something. Fakir barks out a laugh before he collects his manners and smiles crookedly at her. "Okay."

"I don't," she insists, reaching out to jab a finger into his shoulder instead. "You're just being dramatic."

_He's_ the dramatic one. Lord. Life with Ahiru is never boring, at least, and if nothing else, she can fill the space of his silence without much effort on her part at all. It's nice, he thinks, to not have to worry about carrying the tremendous weight of conversation alone - or to really have to worry about carrying it at all. Ahiru shoulders it without even blinking.

It sure makes this a hell of a lot less awkward than he thought it would be. He feels silly. To think, he'd paced back and forth in his bedroom for an hour before finally working up the nerve to drive to her place. It all feels so easy now.

He doesn't know how she does it. It's not like he's an easy nut to crack; Fakir is known pretty universally as unapproachable and intimidating. But for Ahiru, it's like such a reputation hasn't even phased her - she rolls her eyes and laughs and sputters after every sip of her dry cider.

He chances a glance at her and catches her staring right back at him. Heat shoots through his gut like hellfire.

She pinks, but it doesn't deter her. "Can I try yours?"

"You won't like it."

"I won't know until I try, right?"

There's something about her. It must be the freckles dotted along her nose, or the blue of her eyes, or… or the wine in his system, Fakir thinks, steeling himself and nudging his glass toward her. It shouldn't be this easy. Hours ago, they hadn't been friends. Hours ago, he'd made her cry with his social inadequacies. And more than that - _worse_ \- hours ago, there'd been Mytho.

It's been months since he's seen Mytho. Time was supposed to make these things easier. And maybe it had, in a way; Fakir hadn't felt the annoying burn of tears behind his lids, hadn't needed to blink them away. But there'd been something else, a new problem blossoming, and something like guilt still sits heavy in his lungs. Like stones holding him in place.

There's nothing to feel guilty over. He hadn't been caught doing anything he shouldn't. Mytho isn't his and he's not Mytho's.

And _Ahiru's_ not…

Fakir doesn't finish that thought. He doesn't watch her drink either. Ahiru is not _anything._ His eyes redirect themselves over her shoulder as she takes a sip of wine and shivers.

"Blech," she retches, shoving the glass back to him. "How can you drink that?"

"It's not great wine," Fakir admits.

"It takes like every other wine I've ever had."

Silly. "Then why'd you want to taste it?"

He can see her shoulder shrug. It doesn't take a genius to know she's doing the same with her other, too. It's too easy to read her body language. Ahiru is expressive to a fault. "I won't know unless I try."

"But you did know." Fakir looks her in the eye again, apparently sick of being a coward and a fool. There's nothing going on here, he reminds himself, and there's nothing to feel weird about; friends go out for drinks. A man and a woman can go out for drinks and not have anything weird attached to it. A _gay man_ and an _Ahiru_ can go out for drinks after a chance run-in with Mytho and it can be just that - _drinks._ "You just said it tasted like every other wine you've tried."

"I guess I haven't found the wine for me then," Ahiru says, leaning forward, elbows on the table. She has terrible posture and table manners. His wine stained her top lip in a perfect crescent. It's maddening. "But I'll never find it if I stop looking, right?"

"... I suppose so," Fakir allows. It feels more like torture for her at this point. She clearly doesn't like it. And she doesn't enjoy her own drink either. Why put herself through it if she already has an idea what the outcome will be?

She smiles and it's a little mischievous. "You need to take more chances."

Okay, manic pixie dream girl. Fakir snorts and finishes off his glass of wine. He can (pretty easily) accept that he is not perfect and has some things to work through - but he's not sure he'll take it from her, she who still goes to game night with the man who broke her heart and his new girlfriend. That's just emotional suicide. And he's seen the fallout, been witness to her tears and grief. As far as he's concerned, she's just as big of a mess as he is. Pot meet kettle.

And he's about drunk enough to broach the subject. "_You _should spend less time with your ex."

That gets her attention. Ahiru returns to her former shade of pink and flops back in her seat. Caught off guard, it seems the girl with the easy conversation and smart mouth has nothing to say to that.

So he barrels forward. It's for her own good, he tells himself, and he is her _friend _now, and that means he ought to look out for her. "You said it yourself, didn't you? That Rue's the one?"

"Yeah?"

"You're putting yourself through hell for no reason. Stop going."

Ahiru pouts and folds her arms. "You're not my dad."

He sure hopes not. He doesn't recall ever having children. Sometimes he is Uzura's babysitter, and he _is_ technically her uncle, but that's not the same thing at all. Fakir is responsible for himself and himself only, and that's the safest way for things to be.

And yet here he is, nagging the kettle. Fakir lets out a breath. "No," he says, "but I'm your friend, and friends are allowed to worry about you."

He tries to keep his expression neutral. Tries to ignore the annoying jump in his throat when he utters the damn word 'friends' aloud. Fails for just a second when even mentioning it makes Ahiru smile, however sadly it may be.

He is pathetic. And lonely. "You don't owe him anything. It was a clean break. I don't need to know the details to know he was civil about it-"

"How come we can talk about my breakup and not yours?"

Now he's the one caught off guard. Fakir leans back too and takes a moment to just look at her - Ahiru, who apologies as a reflex and stumbles out of the way on sidewalks when she fears she's walking too slowly. Ahiru, who stares back at him evenly, cheeks tinted pink, eyebrows crinkled determinedly. It's the most forward he's ever heard her. Hell, every time he'd seen her with Mytho when they'd been together, Ahiru had been too flustered to even hold the guy's hand in public.

But she stares right back at him. Maybe it's the cider. Or maybe it's _his wine_ that has both of them feeling off. Her lipgloss is still on the rim of his glass, after all.

"... We don't have to if you don't want to," he says finally. "And I don't really want to talk about it."

"You just did. Kind of." Ahiru scrubs at her face; it's clear she'd forgone makeup, because this time there's no mascara smudging along her under eye. Fakir doesn't know if it makes him feel better or worse, that she hadn't fretted over this the way he had. "Sorry. That was-"

"Don't apologize. You're right."

She blinks at him. "Whoa."

"... What?"

"I've never heard you say that before," she says, voice low. Awestruck, apparently, she barrels on. "I don't… think I've ever heard you say anyone else was right before. Especially me."

"I have," Fakir says defensively. "We haven't known each other very long."

"I've still never heard you say it," Ahiru insists.

He has. He _must've._ Fakir doesn't want to think about the reasons why he wouldn't have`; sure, he's stubborn, and everybody wants to feel like they're right, but if he's got his head so far up his ass that Ahiru's noticed he never admits to being wrong, well. Perhaps he deserves his daunting reputation, if that's the kind of guy he (still) is.

Fakir deflates. Runs his finger along the rim of his wine glass. Apparently he hasn't done as much growing up as he thought he had.

"No!" Ahiru panics, jumping up to her feet. "No, that's not what I- I didn't want to make you feel bad about it, I just- I'm not very smart, you know. It's like. A big deal when I'm right about something! I didn't mean to-"

"You're plenty smart," Fakir broods.

The compliment flies directly over her head. Either that or she ignores it, in that stubborn, blind way of hers, and instead of flustering or awkwardly trying to thank him for the emotional validation, Ahiru snatches his glass from his hands and chirps, "I'll get you a refill! On me!"

"I _just_ said I was paying."

"And I said _no way,_" she says, sticking her tongue out at him before turning on her toes and … fluttering towards the bar. She's so laughably out of place, a clumsy duckling cluelessly putzing around a lion's den.

Ahiru is so blind to her effect on people that she doesn't notice the man beside her gives her while she waits for another round of drinks. And she might be blind to the blatant once-over he gives her - Ahiru, in a knitted sweater and ripped, baggy jeans, in a messy braid and no makeup - but Fakir is not.

Call it constant vigilance. Call it foolishness. Call it the two glasses of wine he's already finished beginning to get to him, whatever - something turns in his stomach, uncomfortable and bitter. Maybe even a bit angry.

_Open your eyes,_ he thinks. _Look around you. You don't need Mytho and you don't need Rue. You could do just fine on your own. All of this comes so much easier to you. _

But that's not fair either, Fakir thinks. Just because interaction comes easier to her doesn't mean connecting with others does. And even if it did, it doesn't mean she wants any of the attention she gathers. Ahiru is sweet, undeniably so, but also uncomfortable in her own body, clearly, and still moves like she's a gangly teenager, even if she's barely pushing 5 feet tall. It's not her job to attract other people. It's not her fault if they flock to her like moths to a flame.

Still. Fakir can't shake the misplaced anger. He should. When Ahiru turns, carrying another glass of wine for him and what looks like lemonade for herself, Fakir still feels like a jerk. To think that about her, still, after all of this time, well. He's a jerk. Once a jerk always a jerk, apparently.

The man sizing her up makes eye contact with him. Fakir holds it far longer than necessary, as if issuing a challenge.

"What," Ahiru says, looking over her shoulder. "What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"You have a look on your face." Her brows crinkle. Ahiru's braid whips around her as she turns back to him, leaning closer, unknowingly butting her head right in the middle of their barbaric staredown. "Huh."

"It's nothing," Fakir insists.

She tilts her head and looks at him. Have her eyes always been this blue?

"Nothing," he says again, feeling stupid and angry and _so out of sorts_. What's he trying to accomplish here? Trying to scare off some nobody who'd looked at Ahiru the wrong way? It's not his job to be her bodyguard. He's not…

Fakir swallows.

"You don't look sick," Ahiru notes. When he doesn't move she plops back into her seat. "You'd tell me if you felt bad, right? 'Cuz I deal with sick kids all of the time, and I know you're not a three year old, but I'm really good at rubbing backs and holding back hair when people barf-"

"I'm not sick," Fakir grunts, then sips at his wine. He wishes he was. It's stupid; this possessive tug in his gut is surely because he's her friend - they're _friends _now, that's why they're even here in the first place - and nothing else. He is her friend. Any man at a bar looking crookedly at Ahiru is not a man worth her time, and scaring them off with his patented resting bitch face is a service he can provide her.

Because they are friends. Ahiru can't help that she's pretty. Can't help that she has cute freckles and eyes like tiny oceans.

"_Okaaaay_," she sing songs, then takes a sip of her drink. It goes down much more smoothly, and Fakir the friend keeps a watchful eye on her; if she's moved on to hard liquor the he has twice the obligation to keep her safe.

He should take more chances. Should be more open. Should apologize more often and own up to his wrongdoings and _should absolutely keep that neanderthal from talking to Ahiru_.

"Do you work tomorrow?"

Ahiru hums mindlessly and chews on her straw. "Yeah. I don't really like getting up very early but it's worth it, for the kids. And the paycheck! Even if that sounds kind of bad, but I have to make a living somehow, and it is a job, even if-"

"You don't have to explain yourself to me."

"... But I do like the kids. I like the job, even if it's not very glamorous or difficult or… whatever. The kids make it worth it. Especially the babies. They're so tiny and cute! And squishy!"

Fakir gives a crooked smile and falls easily back into her pace. "Yeah?"

"Yeah! They're like-" she scoots her chair closer to him and bumps his knee. "I've never felt so needed in my life. It's nice to have a purpose! Even if that purpose sort of ends when I clock out in the afternoon. For a little bit somebody really needs me, you know? This tiny bundle of human and warmth and drool depends on me."

She beams at him. The anger in his gut cracks and melts, piece by piece.

Then she catches herself and blushes a pretty pink. "I mean! Um. That sounds pathetic. Um."

"No," he says, shaking his head. "No, I know what you mean. I cried the first time I held Uzura."

The glee on her face is blatant. "You did?! Aw! I would've too - I cry a little bit every time I hold one of the babies for the first time. Especially when they pull my hair."

"Those are tears of pain, idiot."

"Nuh uh! It's _sweet. _It makes me feel like a mom. But like. A part time mom who didn't have to give birth." Ahiru shivers and tugs at her sleeves, burying her fingers beneath her sweater paws. "Mothers are metal."

He can think of nobody more _metal _than his elder sister. That's fair, but it's hilarious, coming out of Ahiru's tipsy mouth, and so he laughs, openly, and the blossoming glee on her face blooms into something undeniably accomplished.

It's been a long time since he's laughed at something like this. It's been even longer since laughing so freely in the presence of someone else. It's less terrifying than he thought. Kind of… freeing.

Fakir doesn't think about it too hard. Instead, he allows himself to just laugh at her antics, and chortles when she tries to sip her lemonade, looks at his laughing face and giggles herself, spewing vodka through her nose. He barely even notices the lingering stranger shake his head and leave - Fakir's too busy trying to simultaneously mop up her mess and keep from bursting into laughter again.


	7. can you see right through me?

"I've never kissed anyone else."

It hangs heavy between them. Fakir sort of thought it would feel… lighter or something. Like finally giving it purchase in the world would lessen the bite in his chest, but it almost feels heavier, now that it finally has solid ground to dig its heels into, like it has power behind its talons now.

Fakir might be bleeding out in this park grass. It's not really the way he thought he'd go - a little tipsy, laying shoulder-to-shoulder with Mytho's ex at midnight, under the ruse of watching the stars but mostly telling secrets. He fidgets, uncomfortable and vulnerable, sort of wishing he'd never said anything at all, wishing that he'd stuck to pointing out constellations and listening to her giggle about the way the damp grass felt under her neck.

But then Ahiru sighs. Turns her head and watches him very obviously as she says, "Yeah. Me neither."

They have so much in common, he thinks, defeated. Here they are, doing the very thing he'd hoped so dearly they wouldn't; basking in their twisted connection, mutually mourning lost love and thwarted happily ever after. It makes his skin crawl. He wishes he could burrow beneath the misty grass and quit being a person.

"... Do you want to?"

His heart lodges itself in his throat. Christ. Unraveling the ugly knot of his desires is dangerous, uncharted territory, and he wishes he was drunker, so that he might feel a little braver, a little bolder. But it's impossible to lie to her, not when she has eyes like that, so wide and honest.

"I don't know," he says. "It's pathetic."

She shakes her head. Smudges some dirt on her freckled cheek. "... It's okay. I don't know if I want to either."

And maybe it's not his shame that hangs heavy between them - maybe it's the tension, the little bits of truth Fakir refuses to acknowledge, how all of the blood in his body runs red hot when they brush pinkies. Does he want to kiss anyone else. Ha.

Fakir doesn't want. He doesn't yearn. Not anymore, not ever. And certainly not in this situation, with this girl, with anyone but Mytho. He's already solved this puzzle, has already figured out where each piece goes, knows himself inside and out - what he doesn't need is more self reflection. And he certainly doesn't need to question this puzzle of a heart he has, not when he'd already solved it years ago.

She just kind of… looks like Mytho, even if she smiles differently and cries differently and laughs differently. She _feels _like him, even if it's just the size of her stupid heart.

He's a knight without a purpose. Without a prince to protect. Of course after a while he'd go looking for someone new to defend. He's retired from this gig, for goodness sake; Fakir hasn't played knight since he was thirteen and Mytho twelve, and no amount of skinned knees and wandering eyes should ever inspire that possessiveness in him ever again. It wasn't enough the first time and it won't ever be enough again.

Fakir shuts it down. Crams the door shut to his heart and twists the lock. He closes his eyes and says, "It doesn't matter."

She lets out a humming noise. It's almost like birdsong, except she's not very good at holding a tune. "... It matters if it hurts you."

"Nothing hurts me."

Ahiru huffs. Her pinky brushes against his and that latched door rattles, disturbed. "Everybody hurts sometimes. It's what makes us human I think."

Puh. What does she know? Fakir doesn't look at her. It's unlikely he'd be able to maintain what's left of his dignity in the face of her eyes. It's like they can see him, all of him, right down to his core, and it's terrifying. Nobody should ever be able to see all of him. Nobody ever has.

"You said you didn't want to talk about your breakup," he says instead, staring up at the sky. "But I thought… it would be helpful for you, if we did."

"Hmmm."

"Did you ever talk to anyone about it?"

She turns her head back to the stars and then stretches. Fakir closes his eyes and doesn't think about the way she sounds, the way she moves, the way her toes point and her hands reach for something that's not there.

"Nuh uh," Ahiru says, sleepy and languid and probably so warm, from that vodka and cider in her system. "Didn't really… have anyone I could. And I didn't want to bother any of my friends, so…"

Christ. It's like looking in a mirror. This is uncharted territory, he broods again, dangerously uncharted territory, and if Fakir really valued his heart, he'd take her home already - he's certainly sober enough to drive by now, and remaining here is willingly throwing himself into the fire, but, _but_.

"... I'll tell you about mine," he says decisively. "If that makes you more comfortable."

She makes a soft noise and rolls over onto her side. Fakir doesn't have to look to know she's staring right into his soul. "No," she says.

"It's okay." It'll be okay. He thinks of Raetsel and her worried eyes, thinks of Mytho and Ahiru and the way that whole conversation had made him feel. He's too old now, he thinks, to be brooding on this, to still be so twisted up over some guy who hadn't wanted him in the end. It will never get better if he doesn't let go.

It'll never get better for her if she never lets go. And visiting him and his new girlfriend is the opposite of letting go.

But she just keeps staring at him like he's broken his own heart. Like he'd been the one to call it quits or something, as if he'd ever be that selfless.

And it's only now he realizes that at some point he'd cracked and looked back at her. Ahiru has a dirty cheek and grass stains on her sweater and the most undivided attention he's ever been privy to. It should be more unnerving than it is.

A lot of things should be more unnerving than they are. Like how comfortable it is laying here with her. Or how he'd admitted to only having kissed Mytho.

"... He wanted to do it in person," Fakir starts, and Ahiru gasps, barely half a breath of noise, and clasps her hands over her own heart. "I should've known something was up when he was awake before me. He's such a lazy bum sometimes, and usually I'd have to be the one to get him up in the morning, especially after we'd…"

... Well. That's something he doesn't let himself think about very often anymore. Fakir clears his throat and tries to ignore the burning running up the back of his neck.

"Anyway. He said he wanted to talk, which was another red flag - Mytho was never decisive, not with me, but-"

"You don't have to tell me," Ahiru insists. "If it hurts, or if it's hard to talk about, I don't… need to know. You don't have to share that with anyone if you don't want to."

"... Do _you _not want to know?"

It looks like she's going to cry. Ahiru keeps blinking rapidly, and her eyes are sure watery - though sometimes Fakir thinks that's just her constant state of being, three seconds away from sniffling. She wears her heart on her sleeve, and that heart, as big as it is, clearly isn't fulfilled with just her own feelings.

He sort of wishes it was. Things would be easier for her. Simpler. She could cry for herself more often. Could stop looking at him like he was digging his own grave.

"I want to know," she says, blinking still. "It just. It hurts?"

"It hurts _you?_"

"I was the reason that happened!"

Ah. The guilt. "Funny. I don't blame you for it anymore. You shouldn't."

Ahiru sniffs and undoubtedly continues to shoulder blame that doesn't belong to her. That selflessness drives him up a wall; Fakir wants to melt right there, beneath the starry sky, beneath her luminous stare and pretend like he is someone else, someone unbroken and _normal._ Maybe then this wouldn't be happening. Maybe then they really could just be friends in the conventional way, and Ahiru's eyes wouldn't make his gut twist up into his chest.

But these are the cards they've been dealt. And expecting the same of her - to want her to talk about it, finally, and air out these feelings she's clearly repressing for the sake of.. whoever, he doesn't even know anymore - well, he has to meet her halfway. That's simple math. Fakir can do math. He's comfortable with things like that. If friendship is an equation, and if equal effort and honestly is required on both parts, he can make it happen. He can trick his brain into being alright with it.

"... But you did," she says, after a long pause. Her eyes are watery and bluer than anything.

He wants to drown. "I didn't know you then."

"But you were hurt," Ahiru says, twisting her fingers into the grass. "And I was part of the reason why. And that's-"

"_You_ didn't break up with me."

"I wasn't dating you! How could I?"

"I would've dumped me for you if I was him too," he scoffs. "You have nothing to feel guilty about."

That shuts her up. It's only when he's finished sorting out the burn in his blood does he realize what he's admitted to, and he doesn't quite blush, because Fakir isn't capable of such things anymore, but he does sort of… choke up a little. Swallowing is a little more difficult than it'd been only moments before. Hm.

It's not that he would date her. That's not what he'd been trying to say. Hopefully Ahiru can put the correct pieces together in her head and not make this weirder than it already is. Christ. Fakir can barely feel the wine anymore, so it's not like he can blame the alcohol for making him loose lipped - it has to be her, and how weirdly easy it is to open up around her.

But she doesn't respond the way he expects her to. Ahiru stays silent, long enough to pique his curiosity, and when he glances over back at her she's biting her lip. Like she's holding the gates shut, like there's something in her she's afraid to let out.

And that. That's something he can understand. Fakir can work with that, something far more in his repertoire. He doesn't know much about feelings or how to manage them, but he knows a hell of a lot about mincing words and _holding back, _especially. This, at least, is something he is comfortable with.

"... I wouldn't," she says finally, and her voice is tighter than it'd been that minute before. "I- he wasn't- and you…"

Ahiru can't spit it out. Fakir decides not to rush her and instead gives her the space to form her thoughts into words. He watches her with calm eyes as Ahiru comes apart at the seams, piece by piece, and feels sort of like a bully, for pushing her to this point.

"... A-at least with you he was, you know," she gives pause, shaking a little, tiny fists clenched before her, laying in the misty grass. It takes everything in him not to cup his own hands over hers and lend her his strength. "... Happy! And fulfilled! I didn't- I _don't…_ feel things like he does. And _you_ do. And he kept saying it was fine, that he was happy and that he loved me but I always still felt like I wasn't giving enough, you know? And it was something I could never give him."

He doesn't follow. She's too vague, or worked up, or… _something._ On the cusp of _actually _crying at him again, and this time Fakir doesn't have a book of poetry to soothe her with.

"You don't owe anyone anything," he says, then. Safe. Probably on topic. "You know that, right? Relationships aren't about what you can give someone."

"Speak for yourself!" she blurts, and oh, she's crying now. That tightness in her voice has broken, and it cracks as she barrels on, fearlessly, selflessly. "You think…! Just because I'm too nice to people it means I'd be a better partner, but you don't know what it was like to date me! He used to talk about you all of the time and how happy you made him and… and…! And I barely even kissed him, because I was too afraid of things escalating and…!"

"Ahiru."

"You don't owe anyone anything either, you know," she wails, and she's moving now, squirming through the grass until she's close enough to knock a tiny fist into his chest. They're laying on their sides now, fully facing each other, and Ahiru's stare is as unrelenting as it is bothersome. "Don't be my friend just because you feel bad for me, and don't think just because Mytho left you that you had something wrong with you. Because you didn't! And you still don't! And I wouldn't have dumped you if I was him. He had it better with you-"

"_Ahiru._" Her fist is trembling. He cups his hands over it before he can think twice this time.

"- I don't like sex!" she says finally, eyes wide, fist shaking. "I don't… think…? And everyday I felt so bad because I wanted him to be happy, and he's happy _now,_ and I don't get to feel bad about myself just because he found that with someone else-"

It's like watching her heart break in real time. It's too much. This isn't in his comfort zone anymore; it's so far out of his hands that Fakir doesn't know how to help anymore, doesn't know how a friend should go about patching up this gaping wound in her chest. Her heart leaves a hole in her, too big for any one person - but especially her, tiny and fiery and generous to a fault. It's like she's been halved.

This hadn't been the intention. He hadn't wanted to get her drunk. Hadn't wanted to make her cry. It's like he just can't manage to do anything right.

"You don't owe anyone anything," he repeats, very seriously. "Especially that."

"I know! I know that, but… I _wanted..._ "

To make Mytho happy. He knows. The very same feeling had torn him apart once. Fakir might not look like it, but he knows what it's like to be halved too. Hearing her out like this, no matter how therapeutic - it's something that should be done with a sober mind, not one buzzing with vodka and cider and the hangover of Mytho's eyes and misguided kindness. It'll tear her apart. He _knows._

"You said it yourself, right? Mytho's happy now. He has Rue."

He knows it breaks her heart. He isn't stupid and he isn't blind - Ahiru is still just as much in love with Mytho as she was the day they first met at the park and fed the pigeons. Something like this should tear her apart, should actually make her cry, but instead she smiles, watery and honest, with trembling lips and shaking hands and rosy lashes stained dark with her tears.

Only Ahiru would smile. Only Ahiru would sit here, wallowing in her broken heart and still smile about it. It makes him feel crazy. Makes him feel things he hasn't felt in years and none of it makes sense.

"I like Rue," Ahiru says, but her voice is so garbled that it's hard to make anything out. She sniffles and laughs. "Sorry."

"C'mon. I'll get you home."

"I wouldn't have dumped you for me. I mean it," she says, even as he's sitting up and working on tugging her up, too. "I'm sorry."

Idiot. "Stop apologizing. I'm the one who should be saying sorry to you."

He pulls the both of them to their feet before she can wail out a response. Ahiru is short - like maybe not even five feet tall short - with the longest hair he's ever seen and her eyes still full of tears, but when she looks up at him it's still full of a silent strength. When she looks up at him, there's no fear there, no reservations, even though he'd accidentally reopened a wound she'd surely rather keep stitched shut.

He can't look at her. Her eyes are like headlights and he is just a stupid, stupid deer. What the hell.

"... Sorry," he says, shoving his hands into his pockets, looking to his shoes. "Really. You don't… have to talk about it if you don't want to."

She sniffles. Maybe she nods. He doesn't know. Fakir's too cowardly to look.

"I still don't think you should go to game night."

Another sniffle. "But…"

"But you're stubborn and you'll still do what you think is best anyway, I know." She wouldn't be Ahiru otherwise. And he's not in the business of changing people into what he thinks are the best versions of themselves, not anymore. Ahiru is up to Ahiru, and not to him, and Fakir will find peace in that. "... I just don't want to see you hurt."

She probably shrugs. "I'm already hurt. What's the difference?"

"You could protect what's left of yourself."

Ahiru laughs then, sad and brittle. "There's not enough left. 'Sides. I like Rue. I want her to be happy too. And she says she likes it when I visit."

Idiot. _Idiot_. It's not his business. It's not. There are still pieces of himself left to protect too, and willingly throwing himself into the fire is not the way to go about it - and just because Ahiru seems dead set on putting herself through hell doesn't mean he has to follow her lead. He's her friend and a boy but not her _boyfriend,_ and takes no ownership over her.

… Ownership isn't the right word. That's a dangerous thought too. He's not allowed to have those anymore. Possessiveness runs ugly in him. He doesn't know what he'd do with her anyway. She has one of those personalities that's too big to tame, too big to protect. Ahiru would run the old him ragged. Would drive him up a wall.

He's still sort of holding her hand. Mostly her wrist. His fingers lock around it, so delicate and thin.

"I'll drive you home," he says quietly. "Sorry."


End file.
